Poetry is certainly not the way to get in my writing quota today. There was more to that one, but it began going in a way that was out of alignment with an original idea about rawness so I stopped, deleted the parts that were tangent and just left it.

I’m working on one brain cell anyway.

It is so nice to be home. “Day off”. I took a nap after making chicken soup - love chicken soup - crashed really hard - bad dreams this time.

In one part I can remember, it was raining a lot, I was driving around and I couldn’t see where I was going. Suddenly the car drove downward. I was on a rooftop and just went down a set of steps the car would never get back up. The rooftop was flooding and the car was starting to fill with water. I looked at my phone hoping to call for help, but the images on the phone just started melting away. Next I remember sitting at a round picnic style table with three others, one of which was my daughter. We were out on some farm or something - dark wood panels on the interior of the building - gravel driveway. Rain was just pouring down all around us. Same issue about being isolated and no cell phone to call for help. That’s really all I can remember. Funny how stuff can happen and I primarily walk away with just the feeling of it all.

So back to the raw thing for a second. I got to thinking about why I love someone. In an earlier post I mentioned the idea of an innocence. I think that raw energy is a part of that. Uncurbed. It doesn’t always really know what it’s doing, but it wants it and just ploughs forward figuring it out along the way. It’s like a fighter’s energy - I want to call it that - because there is a lot of instinct and survival. But it would be a misidentification. Fighters train for specific things. Their instinct is honed to anticipate and plot and plan and attack - but it happens so fast, it just seems like it’s instinct. Fighting is so related to survival - you need good instincts to survive and you need good instincts to survive a fight. Training and practice - the discipline of fighting as sport or survival - fine tune raw desire that is naturally there. I’m going to really stretch here - but I’m going to say that this should be applied to everything: other sports like cycling or swimming or whatever, work like typing or analyzing or building, home life like being a good cook or cleaner or friend to your spouse or kids, relationships like friendships and people you date. All the “stuff” you go through can be treated like exercise when new. Look at how you went about doing some things or thinking about some things. Were they productive? Were the consistent with what you want long term? Are you sacrificing the long game for the short term win (is it a marathon or a sprint?)? Is your communication honest?

This all may take away from the rawness which is so beautiful - I don’t want to kill any raw energy. Honestly, if that is a fear, I should just go back and check out a good fight or a good game. Honed skill. I think of athletes like Cal Ripkin, Jr., or Brian Urlacher, or Julio Cesar Chavez who managed long careers and seemed to stay out of the tabloids for crazy behavior or epic fails. I’m not saying it’s easy - I’m saying it’s possible - and I’m saying it’s part of the game of life - depending on how you define winning, that is.Just food for thought.

reprinted from https://etherealbeings.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/grouchy/

Same goes for artists - carousing and debauchery, lack of balance and all that - more later though.